Japanese junior high

Well, we took the leap and put my DS2 in Japanese junior high! He had been in Japanese grade school for all 6 years, and we originally meant for him to go to international school from 7th grade onwards, but about a year ago he started stressing out about changing systems, using English in school, and leaving his friends. We finally decided to let him try out Japanese junior high.

He started in early April, and after a couple of weeks of nervousness and some stress about all the newness, he has settled right in!! He's made some new friends (three grade schools funnel into the one junior high), and he loves *almost* all his classes and teachers.

Unfortunately, the **only** teacher who is not so good is his English teacher! He is just not a pleasant person, and his teaching is boring and annoying. Luckily, he has left DS2 alone (in fact, virtually ignores him)!! He does not seem to be grading him strangely in tests or anything. And DS2 is under strict instructions never to smirk in class!!! (Since the teacher is so unpleasant I would not like to see the effect of DS2 smirking at his pronunciation or misinformation or whatever). The other day DS2 really felt like commenting on some misinformation -- the teacher told the class that "drink some tea" means that you have two or more cups of tea -- but he managed to keep his comment to himself, luckily!!!

Anyway, this was not meant to be a complaining post. DS2 loves his social studies class, P.E., art, music, science, and all the others. He is really enjoying the system of having a different teacher for each class (unlike grade school). The other teachers besides English are all friendly and engaging, etc.! We still want to transfer him over to the international school for the beginning of 9th grade, so he can be ready with his academic English for university applications (SAT tests and all that). Anyway, so far, so good!

Comments (7)

That's great! I remember you were talking about your son who was in grade 6, and you were going to transfer him to the international school, and didn't know when. I am so happy that he is comfortable in his Junior High. That is such an important age, so it is great he is happy! And his English and Japanese skills will both be so excellent when he graduates High School. How perfect is that!

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Canadian-Hungarian family living in Canada speaking Hungarian at home.

If you are not too busy, I am wondering what they teach about the Japanese atrocities against Korea and China. I was talking to my son about Hitler, and evidently they haven't reached Hitler yet by fourth grade (end of third grade by the American system.) DS did not know anything about Hitler, so I told him what I knew.

ODS is finishing third grade now, and we always wonder at what point we'll switch him from Russian school to English school. Here the natural transition is after 4th grade, as that is when they graduate from the elementary school curriculum, and start to have separate teachers for separate subjects, but that is starting to sound awfully soon. . .

I was talking to my son about Hitler, and evidently they haven't reached Hitler yet by fourth grade (end of third grade by the American system.)

That must depend on the State. My first year of any kind of history was Indiana History in 4th grade. 6th grade was more geography-centered, covering Latin American and Canada. 7th grade was "Social Studies," but mainly US-European-centric world history (where we covered the World Wars for the first time). American History was 5th, 8th, and 11th grades. Ancient and Modern World History were each one semester electives that could be taken any time 9 -12th grade.

They haven't done any history in 7th grade yet, as the first two months have been focused on geography. But the whole of 6th grade is focused on history, mostly Japanese history. At some point I had a look at their textbook and it basically skimmed the surface in a fairly brief but factual way (missing a lot of facts though, of course, since it skims over the topics). Their teacher did tell them that Japan did bad things during the war, but I guess this depends on the teacher's outlook. My son was not made to feel uncomfortable for being on the other side in the war (British and American).

My general sense is that the Japanese history they get in 6th grade is fairly on par with what American 6th graders would get... bland fare, with nothing that would upset them or make them too upset with the country they live in. I doubt that American 6th graders get much about American misdoings in South-East Asia, Central America, etc!! :) I've been reading the book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me", (highly recommended!) about U.S. history textbooks in America, and it seems that even high school students don't learn much about American misdoings, but rather are fed a pretty bland history diet.

I work in Japanese Jr. High schools and noticed that recently one of the grades (not first grade, but I can't remember whether it was 2nd or 3rd) had been learning about the mid-1900's -- all sorts of stuff like WWII, the New Deal in America, the development of Communism in China, etc. Most of what I know about it is from looking at the blackboard when I have lunch with a class that has just had history lesson... the blackboard is littered with all kinds of random words like "New Deal" "Mao Tse Tung" "Taiwan" etc. They were also completing small posters in pairs, with the theme of peace.